Daily Archives: October 7, 2011

Jenson Button continued to lead proceedings for the Japanese Grand Prix weekend.

The McLaren driver headed Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel in second practice. The second McLaren was down in 8th place, 1.3 seconds off the pace.

Bruno Senna and Michael Schumacher both fell prey to Turn 1, with both cars having off-course excursions. Rubens Barrichello spun out at Degner after clipping the grass, while teammate Pastor Maldonado suffering technical problems. Kamui Kobayashi had a scary moment at 130R, nearly losing control, but he just wrestled the Sauber back onto track.

Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton headed the timesheets for first practice for the Japanese Grand Prix.

The most notable event of the session was championship leader Sebastian Vettel spinning out near the end of the session. The Red Bull driver ran wide at Degner 2, slid onto the gravel and made light contact with the barriers, ending his session.

Earlier on, Vettel was seen admirably using DRS at the 130R corner without backing off.

Despite his incident, he still went 3rd, behind the two McLarens. Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber were 4th and 5th respecively.

Pastor Maldonado was another driver caught out by the Suzuka track. The Williams ran wide at Turn 6, and pulled over shortly afterwards. It was a poor session for the team, with Maldonado and Rubens Barrichello completing only 19 laps between them.

Nico Hulkenberg took over Adrian Sutil’s Force India, finishing 12th. Both Karun Chandhok and Narain Karthikeyan drove their teams’ cars, and ended the session just behind their respective teammates.